When I can, I get a real tree. After Christmas, I trim all the leaves and branches off the trunk and put those in the municipal compost bin. I then put the trunk in storage and let it dry out for a year or two. Once dry, I’ll carve them into things like walking sticks, wizard staffs, etc.

We used to give lobotomies to those who didn’t fit in right in capitalist workplaces.

One fun version of this. I once read a fanfiction that included a character with an interesting trait. They were cursed to be completely, hopelessly, comically lost. They get lost going to the bathroom in their own home. They end up hundreds or thousands of miles from where they intend to be.

But the tradeoff is, if there is ever somewhere they actually really need to be, they will be there every time. A loved one about to get hit by a bus? By random chance, the character would just happen to be wandering at the right place and time to intervene. Their kid has an important school play they need to attend? They’ll by dumb luck find their way to the auditorium. They live a life completely unable to get to where they want to go, but in turn they will always be where they need to be.

I know it’s a joke. But this could actually be an interesting plot setup, with one modification. I would make it so that Trolley man couldn’t actually save anyone himself. Rather, he has the power to temporarily give anyone powers equivalent to Superman or similar. The only problem is this is so stressful on the person’s body that the power up kills them after it wears off.

I propose a new law. If the victim of a murder is someone who owns a fortune more than 1000x the median household income, then someone on trial for the murder can make an affirmative defense that it was ok, simply because, “he needed killin.'”

Literally, if you can convince the jury that the guy had it coming, you get off Scott free. Anyone who wants to avoid potentially being killed and having their killer escape unpunished can avoid this fate by simply not hoarding wealth over the critical threshold. Those who hoard such fortunes will just have to live with enough kindness that no one could ever convince a jury that they deserved to die. We’ll end up with no billionaires or every billionaire becoming like Fred Rogers. I’ll take either outcome.

I’m sure it will be built by a contracting company incorporated just for this purpose. And after this, it will be dissolved. They’ll have no reputation to defend.

In the spirit of inclusive leftism, I say it stands for both!

Ban cars throughout the entire city. Delivery vehicles at night time only. Let the rich return to the ancient ways. To separate themselves from the rabble, they’ll be carried around in sedan chairs like the rich fat bastards of yore.

He should have the city seize the means of production. Specifically, seize the NY Post. Turn it into an actually useful news source.

It should be legal to set fire to cars parked in the bike lane. By car brain logic, parking a vehicle in a bike lane is a form of kidnapping directed against cyclists. Look at the rhetoric car brains use to discuss protesters on roads, then apply the same logic to vehicles parked in bike lanes.

Polls have been pretty accurate. Some of the polls involving elections Trump specifically runs in have been less accurate, but even the polling of his race in 2024 was pretty accurate.

The UK is a primitive backwater. An absolute shithole.

If you’re involved in any kind of protest, the phone number of a lawyer. Hell, generalize this. Make sure you memorize numbers of at least the first few of your emergency contacts. You never know when you will be separated from your phone.

Generally true politically. But these are questions that need to be asked.

Yes, it’s tempting to say, “a human life is priceless, no price to save a life is too high.” But there are an infinite number of ways dollars can be spent to save lives. And by making cars more expensive, that puts less money in people’s pockets to pay for healthcare, quality nutrition, etc.

What if someone invented a miraculous but expensive safety device? Imagine if someone invented a device that decreased traffic deaths by 95%, but at the cost of $250k per vehicle. We would make vehicles incredibly safe, but at the cost of completely shutting working people out from vehicle ownership. Would it still be worth it? There will always be some point where safety just isn’t worth the cost. Not because we don’t care about human life, but simply because there are many potential ways for us to spend money to enhance human safety and well-being.

I’m looking forward to this new The Beatles/Attack on Titan mashup. :D

In that case, I think the student could easily prove their authenticity. Invite the student in and ask them to explain their understanding of and perspectives on several conflicting flavors of Marxism. Compare and contrast Leninism and Maoism. Or find other ways for them to demonstrate some understanding of Marxism. If the student really is just such a big Marx fan that they shoehorn the topic into every paper they can, it is reasonable to expect they have at least some surface-level understanding of Marxism, or at least to the level that would be necessary to write the paper they submitted.

Fuck it. Let’s make the Internet Archive only accessible from public libraries. And you will have to physically go to a library to access it. No accessing the archive through your library’s website.

I could also be convinced to make the Internet Archive only accessible from a series of elaborate temples we build just for this purpose.

Regardless of the method, the point is that the Internet Archive still exists and serves its core purpose. It loses some convenience of scholarly access, but in turn it now becomes useless as a paywall bypass mechanism.

Because I’ve personally met Jesus Christ. He’s a 10,000 year old former cave man.

No no no. You want WoodsScientist. I’m WoodScientist.